Mennonites, Amish assisting in tornado recovery

Friday

May 20, 2011 at 12:01 AMMay 20, 2011 at 11:59 PM

PHIL CAMPBELL — Mennonites and Amish, known for community barn raisings, are helping rebuild Phil Campbell from the destruction of the April 27 tornado.

PHIL CAMPBELL — Mennonites and Amish, known for community barn raisings, are helping rebuild Phil Campbell from the destruction of the April 27 tornado.This week, the Mennonite Disaster Service brought in its first 13 volunteer workers from Lancaster County, Pa., who will rotate out when another group of Mennonites and Amish workers replace them Sunday.Their first construction project is nearly completed — Camp Bell — which will eventually be able to house 40 workers who could stay in the region for months or more than a year.The base camp is in an unused part of a trailer park south of town and consists of a network of trailers connected to a main house where the workers will eat and congregate.Two trailers are designated for sleeping, another for showering and another for the kitchen facility. One organizer said as long as there is a need here, they will remain. The workers focus on residents who sustained storm damage and do not have insurance coverage. The group works free of charge, but does not purchase any supplies.The Mennonite Disaster Service joins several other faith-based groups in the recovery and rebuilding efforts throughout Phil Campbell, including the United Methodist Disaster Recovery Ministry, chapters of the Southern Baptist Disaster Relief and Christian Aid Ministries and the Churches of Christ disaster relief effort.The Mennonite Disaster Service is a volunteer network of Anabaptist churches that includes the Mennonites and the more conservative Amish.Nearly a dozen workers helped rebuild the west side of Ruth Wallace’s house that was sheared from the storm. Wallace survived in a shelter behind her place while the tornado ripped the wall and blew out the Sheetrock inside the western half of her home.Wallace said a Baptist preacher helped get her in touch with the Mennonites, who on Tuesday busily worked on cleaning up her yard and tearing apart a deck.“Hopefully, if the good Lord is willing, we’ll be able to get it back to normal,” Wallace said. She said she lives on a fixed income and did not have insurance for her home, which has been in her family for decades. Young men in thin suspenders and black pants worked alongside women in pastel long dresses with their hair pulled back with scarves hauling clapboards and two-by-fours from a trailer.When asked how she would afford the building supplies, Wallace said, “FEMA (the Federal Emergency Management Agency) is going to help me some; I don’t know how much.” She added, “I heard the IRS may help me. That’s all people tell me, that’s all I know.”She looked on as Jonathan Esh and Levi Esh, both of Lancaster County but unrelated, took turns hammering boards off a damaged deck. The boards will be used to rebuild the deck..Levi, 18, worked in Mississippi a couple of years ago helping to rebuild the Gulf Coast from the devastation of Hurricane Katrina.For Jonathan, 17, it was his first time in a disaster relief effort. “I want to come back already,” he said. In the front yard, sisters Anna Marie and Katherine Lapp raked debris into a wheelbarrow. “We do whatever we can; whatever work they give us,” Katherine said. Phil Campbell joins Birmingham as the two locations in Alabama chosen by federal emergency management officials for the Mennonite Disaster Service, said Jerry Klassen, disaster response coordinator.Volunteers said the effort could take up to two years, but Klassen said the group would stay as long as the “four pillars” of the program are available.The first pillar consists of volunteers capable of helping to repair and rebuild. The second pillar is the support system for workers such as vehicles and equipment. The third pillar is making sure the work is meaningful, specifically targeted to vulnerable residents such as single parents, elderly, low-income or handicapped residents.“If we find people are asking us to build swimming pools, we’ll probably move on,” Klassen said. The final pillar is making sure that finances are available for material. “(The residents we help) require additional money, so we look for partners who are willing to provide money for materials,” Klassen said.Unlike the Amish, of Lawrenceburg, Tenn., and Lancaster County, Pa., known for their horses and buggies, Mennonites reject or embrace technology, depending on group or even individual preferences.“We operate our organization on a fairly highly technological level,” Klassen said. “Now we’re even messing with Facebook.”Mennonite workers drove the group of 19 Amish workers around this week — a group that left Friday to be replaced by another group next week.The Mennonite Disaster Service started in 1950 with disaster relief for tornadoes in Oklahoma and flooding in Manitoba, Canada.Now, the group supports 10 to 12 projects a year, including years helping communities recover from Hurricane Katrina that hit New Orleans and the Gulf Coast in 2005.Many of the volunteers working on Wallace’s house said family and neighbors picked up the slack on chores back home. In addition to the bricks and mortar work involved, Klassen said the mission has a higher purpose. “It’s a response of faith on a personal level. The majority of our volunteers, they say, ‘It’s because of what God has done for me.’ “The day after the group took the deck apart, another group finished rebuilding it. Aaron Esh, 18, hammered nails into the deck’s wooden frame. His grandfather and father own a construction business, one where Esh and his three brothers work. During the week Esh is away, his family will take care of the chores on the farm. “We’re all here for the same reason, trying to help out,” he said.

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